of the seven tour de france titles and everything he was involved with. >> just why. thank you. we look for your piece in the paper tomorrow morning. we appreciate it. and thank you so much for being with me. i'm brooke baldwin. good to be with you. let's turn things over to wolf blitzer. he is working "the situation room" for you once again. wolf blitzer, to you. brooke, thanks very much. happening now, the presidential candidates head back to the swing states still fighting some of their battles from last night's debate. cnn's post debate poll showed the president won. but will that have any impact on the race itself? and the cyclist lance armstrong's fall from grace passes two more major milestones. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. all that coming up, let's get to the breaking news. u.s. government agents say they have foiled an apparent terrorist plot in new york city.

it's a bomb plot. and the suspect is in custody, will later be in court today. let's go straight to cnn's national correspondent susan candiotti, she's joining us from new york. what do we know, susan? >> hi, wolf. we know that this alleged plot had been underway for quite some time. an undercover sting operation being conducted by the fbi and the nypd to foil a planned plot to blow up the federal reserve bank here in lower manhattan. it's very close to wall street. and apparently it all went down, culminated in the alleged plot that went down today and that's when this man was arrested. he is only 21 years old. and apparently he was planning to take and detonate a 1,000-pound bomb, what he thought was a bomb, but it was inert, no member of the public was in danger because the feds were all over this, they say, as they were putting this operation together they say at the request of this suspect.

they say it was all his idea. only 21 years old. his name is quasi muhammad renswa. he came to the united states in january of this year, a bangladeshi national. came here they say trying to conduct or carry out a terrorist attack in the united states. and only this morning the feds say that he met them at a warehouse and then he drove to another location where he tried to detonate the bomb and that's when they arrested him. they said that he told them he wrote "that he wanted to destroy america. and that before all this happened he went so far as to make a suicide tape in which according to prosecutors he said "we will not stop until we obtain victory or martyr dom."

they say he wanted to target america's economy and bring it down. again, the bomb was inert. they were able to arrest him before he blew up the bomb, which really wasn't one to begin with. but he will be making an appearance in court this afternoon. i'm also told by a source with information who is very close to the investigation because a lot of this sting operation was put on videotape and at some point during the course of this operation, this investigation, this court proceeding, we may get video of this at some point during the course of this. it may not be until it comes to trial. we'll have to see what happens. but it is all coming down just today. the federal reserve bank as you know here in new york, wolf, has the largest stash of gold bullion in the world. back to you. >> susan, is it clear that this was -- that there was a political motivation, that this may have been al qaeda or al qaeda-inspired kind of terrorism

that was involved? >> yes. that's what prosecutors say. that he was attempting to help al qaeda. that this was a terror plot in association with al qaeda according to prosecutors and that this man came here with the intent of carrying out some sort of a terrorist attack. they say that the plot and the target that he chose was the federal reserve bank was his idea according to prosecutors. although he said at one point he also wanted to target, and they don't name who it is, but a high-ranking official. so perhaps we'll learn more about that from the fbi as this case goes on. >> so just to be precise, was this they believe a lone wolf, as they say? or was he part of an organization, an al qaeda-related organization some place? >> well, that's a good question. i did ask my sources about that. they tell me at this time it appears he was a lone wolf acting on his own. >> susan candiotti will be working this story for us. susan, thanks very much.

very disturbing. we've known al qaeda for many, many years. they've always gone after economic targets. their goal to try to bring down the united states of america. the federal reserve in new york if it was in fact such a target obviously had that kind of ambition. let's get to some other news we're following. we're down to only 20 days until the presidential election. this afternoon president obama and mitt romney, they are squeezing in some campaigning in the all-important swing states before they have to hunker down once again to prepare for their third and final debate monday night. last night's fiery town hall debate is very much on their minds today. our white house correspondent, dan lothian, was with the president at his first stop today in iowa. >> reporter: wolf, even before the president arrived here at cornell college in mt. vernon, iowa, supporters were bragging about the performance one fired up the crowd by saying president obama was passionate reminiscent

of the candidate they saw here in iowa in 2008. >> sharp, focused, passionate, knowledgeable, game on. >> reporter: with his sleeves rolled up and his tie loosened, the president strutted on to the stage in a sweltering gym and reminded voters about last night. >> as many of you know, we had our second debate last night. [ cheers and applause ] you know, i'm still trying to figure out, you know, how to get the hang of this thing. debating. but we're working on it. we'll keep on improving as time goes on. i've got one left. >> reporter: the president then shifted his focus to gop nominee mitt romney mocking his five-point plan. >> it's really a one-point plan. it says folks at the very top can play by their own set of rules. >> reporter: the president said the debate helped sharpen the clear choice voters have in november. and he emphasized that point with a new line of attack.

>> let's recap what we learned last night. his tax plan doesn't add up. his jobs plan doesn't create jobs. his deficit reduction plan adds to the deficit. so, iowa, everybody here's heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. we are not buying it. >> reporter: from here the president heads to ohio, a key battleground state that both campaigns are fighting very hard to win in november. and where governor romney has closed the gap in the most recent polls. wolf. >> dan lothian with the president. mitt romney told a virginia crowd he loves taking part in the debates with president obama. members of both campaigns, they are still arguing about something that romney said during last night's confrontation. cnn's national political correspondent jim acosta is with the romney campaign.

>> reporter: wolf, after what sounded like a war between two men trying to assume the role of debate alpha dog, both campaigns are still barking. not surprisingly mitt romney is sounding like a candidate who believes he's gone two-for-two, but at his first post debate event it's worth noting what did and did not come out. >> i love these debates. you know, these things are great. >> reporter: in virginia mitt romney was still in a new york state of mind still talking about his debate rematch with president obama. >> i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. he can't even explain what he's done in the last four years. >> reporter: but at his first event after the debate, romney did not touch on the night's flash point that got as fiery as the body language between the candidates. just as his campaign signalled he would do during the debate, romney seized on the deaths at the u.s. consulate in libya. but when romney thought he'd caught the president falsely portraying his comments at the white house the day after the attack, the gop nominee

inadvertently gave mr. obama an opening. >> you said in the rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. it was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying? >> please proceed, governor. >> i want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in benghazi an act of terror. >> get the transcript. >> reporter: the obama campaign is not only pointing to what the president said in the rose garden. >> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the value we stand for. >> reporter: the president also notes his comments the following day. >> no acts of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world. no act of terror will go unpunished. >> reporter: in the post debate spin room, top romney surrogates were armed with a different view. >> he used the words act of terror in a general sense. but listen, for five days they said just the opposite. >> reporter: an argument echoed by paul ryan on the morning

shows. >> it was a passing comment about acts in terror in general. it was not a claim that this was the result of a terrorist attack. >> reporter: the romney campaign pointed to what ambassador to the united nations susan rice said five days after the attack that it was in response to the anti-islamic video. >> it was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what had transpired in cairo. >> reporter: then white house press secretary jay carney eight days after benghazi. >> we do not have evidence that it was premeditated. >> reporter: the political battle over benghazi is drawing attention away from moments touted by both campaigns, whether it was romney on the economy. >> we just can't afford four more years like the last four years. >> reporter: or the jabs from the president on romney's record on china, his opposition to a bailout of the auto industry and even his wealth. >> i don't look at my pension. it's not as big as yours. >> reporter: in reflection of the romney campaign's desire to jump back into debate prep as soon as possible, advisors postponed what was billed as a

speech on fiscal discipline. no word yet on when it will be rescheduled. wolf. >> jim acosta, thank you. and you don't want to miss the third and final presidential debate that happens monday night. the focus will be on foreign policy. cnn special coverage will begin at 7:00 p.m. eastern. we all noi the economy took center stage at last night's town hall debate, but what other issues did the candidates focus on? we're giving you a special look. that's coming up. also, major concerns about where syrian rebels are getting their weapons. you're going to want to see this. let's say you want to get ahead in your career. how do you get from here... to here? at university of phoenix we're moving career planning forward so you can start figuring that out sooner. ln fact, by thinking about where want your education to lead, while you're still in school, you might find the best route... leads somewhere you weren't even looking. let's get to work.

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you heard the saying time will tell, well, we're taking it to heartbreaking down the presidential debate last night minute by minute, issue by issue. the bigger the tile, the longer a candidate spoke. overall president obama there in blue, he spoke for 44 minutes and 4 seconds last night. that's about three minutes more

than mitt romney on the right in red. as for what they talked about most, president obama's number one issue was the economy. 15 minutes and 15 seconds. governor romney also spoke longest about the economy coming in at 14 minutes, 54 seconds, almost exactly the same amount of time as the president. number two for the president, energy. which was also governor romney's number two issue. they split on number three, that would be immigration for president obama, taxes for the challenger. the economy provided a fascinating revelation about the tone of the debate. both men spent much more time on offense. take a look. president obama there more than four minutes attacking governor romney on the economy. romney hit obama more than three minutes. and now look at this. at the time each man spent on defense, far, far less. for each it seems the best defense was a good and lengthy offense. let's bring in cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger.

she's been working her sources. she's looking at all of this that's going on. they spoke a lot about the economy, gloria. but were that effective in making their respective arguments? >> i think each side was effective. if you look at our poll we did right after the debate when the viewers of the debate were asked who would do a better job of managing the economy, mitt romney won 58 to 40. mitt romney was clearly his best and i think you would probably agree when he was on the most comfortable turf for him which was the economy. using the phrase over and over again that the middle class has been buried, you heard that one before from the vice president making his case to people that we don't have to settle is the phrase he used. we don't have to settle for this reminding people of what had occurred in the economy 23 million unemployed or underemployed over the past four years et cetera. so that was a good comfortable corner for him to be in, but

this time the president went on the attack as you were showing right there in your graphic. and the president kept saying to mitt romney, that's not true. that's not true. when he accused him of certain things or used certain statistics. and the president also said, look, your math doesn't add up. you want to let the bush tax cuts for the wealthy, you know, stay in place. how are you going to reduce the deficit? so it was a very, very tough argument on that. but clearly the people who watched the debate, mitt romney, that may have been the one area in which he did better than the president. >> that really nasty exchange they had on benghazi, the libya killing of the four americans. >> yeah. >> how key was that to both of these candidates? >> well, i think it was very key to the president. it was a very tense emotional moment. i think the president was more strident in his answer to that than i saw him in almost any other answer because he said he

found it offensive the people who thought he could use his commander in chief position for any kind of political gain. and by setting that tone and being so kind of emotional about it, i think he caught mitt romney off guard. whatever the substance of their claims about who said what when on terror, he caught mitt romney off guard. and i think romney didn't know what kind of tone to assume. he didn't seem to have his libya answer down pat. if he wants to make the case that this is an issue of leadership, that the president hasn't shown strong leadership in the middle east or with al qaeda, he'll have to find a better way to do it in the foreign policy debate coming up. because he really didn't do it last night. >> romney, he had an opening. because the question the president didn't even answer the question leading up to that benghazi attack, state department officials said they had asked for more weapons but they were denied more security, more protection. he didn't answer that. and romney didn't call him on

that. he didn't say, why didn't you answer the question. that was a missed opportunity. >> he was off guard. >> but they were both very aggressive. >> yeah. i'd say. >> i don't know how that plays out there. >> well, a lot of testosterone out there to get the women's vote. let me just point this out. i think they were very combative. and i think sometimes mitt romney got in the president's face so close as you saw that i think it was a little uncomfortable for people to watch. there are questions about whether romney was too aggressive. after all this is a sitting president of the united states. so i think it was a bit uncomfortable, tense, but it really shows you, wolf, how high the stakes are in these debates. and i think what barack obama's fans saw was somebody who was actually fighting to keep his job. and what mitt romney's fans saw was somebody who's fighting for the presidency. so the stakes at the foreign policy debate are going to be very, very high. lots of republicans i talked to are saying why did we allow the

foreign policy debate to be the last debate? maybe we should have had a domestic policy debate be the last debate. but, you know, you never know when foreign policy debates are going to turn to the economy. seems like everything does. >> if romney won debate number one and president obama number one debate number two, it's all up to debate number three right now for the best of three series. >> on monday. >> we'll see what happens. by the way, tonight during our 6:00 p.m. eastern hour here in "the situation room," gloria will join us once again with her exclusive interview with mitt romney's former chief of staff, the same woman the republican nominee mentioned during last night's debate. stand by, you'll see that. also coming up, syrian rebels aren't getting weapons from the united states. so where are they turning for the fire power? we have new and very scary details. [ man ] in hong kong, on my way to the board meeting...

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now a story you're seeing first right here on cnn. there are growing fears about where some of syria's rebel fighters are getting their weapons. let's go straight to our pentagon correspondent chris lawrence. chris, what are you learning? >> that while the u.s. has been carefully vetting some of the syrian rebel groups to find these moderates, these so-called moderates are already busy finding partners of their own in the jihadists. an official who has knowledge of the intelligence says that the moderate rebel groups are so desperate for weapons that they're partnering up with the jihadists who are better armed and well-funded.

moderate syrian rebels are not getting the weapons they want from the united states. so they're turning more and more to extremists and al qaeda-like groups for help. that's the newest assessment from the chair of the house intelligence committee who told cnn "even rebels we've identified as somebody we could work with have partnered with jihadists because they have their own sources of money and weapons." but the obama administration has stuck to its policy of only arming the rebels with radios and computers. its u.s. allies are giving the real fire power. u.s. officials say they have a good idea which rebel groups are getting those weapons. >> we do have very close coordination in looking at all of the needs of the opposition. >> reporter: other officials familiar with the intelligence say that's not necessarily true. that the saudis and qataris are

not sharing where all their money and weapons are going. governor mitt romney has argued for a more hands on approach to syria. >> i'll work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values. and then ensure that they obtain the arms they need to defeat assad's tanks and helicopters and fighter jets. >> reporter: but with partnerships already being established between moderate and jihadist fighters, there's no guarantee those weapons would not fall into extremist hands. and while syrian rebel groups vo scrounge for small arms, some are reportedly stashing them for later. >> militias who overthrew the government want to have a stake in who replaces him. >> reporter: dave hartwell says if true, the jihadists are already planning for a fight after assad. >> this shows a level of preparation and foresight perhaps missing from the second opposition. >> in fact, one official told me

if you're a syrian rebel commander and you have a jihadist who offers to drive a car bomb up to a gate and set it off, that is a very valuable weapon for you. and he said that's how these relationships are starting to develop. he says the u.s. has a very tight window in order to step in and exert a leadership role perhaps, wolf, as short as four to six weeks. >> chris lawrence reporting for us very disturbing information. thank you. with two presidential debates now history, what happens in the campaign next? our special panel is standing by. so now i can be in the scene. advair is clinically proven to help significantly improve lung function. unlike most copd medications, advair contains both an anti-inflammatory and a long-acting bronchodilator working together to help improve your lung function all day. advair won't replace fast-acting inhalers for sudden symptoms and should not be used more than twice a day. people with copd taking advair

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well, if itmr. margin?margin. don't be modest, bob. you found a better way to pack a bowling ball. that was ups. and who called ups? you did, bob. i just asked a question. it takes a long time to pack a bowling ball. the last guy pitched more ball packers. but you... you consulted ups. you found a better way. that's logistics. that's margin. find out what else ups knows. i'll do that. you're on a roll. that's funny. i wasn't being funny, bob. i know.

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economy, health care, taxes, deficit. >> this election 20 days left now, 21 last night when they were debating is as close as it can get. everything they do, every stop they make, you saw them on the trail today. >> you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. >> don't you think that it's time for him to finally put together a vision of what he'd do in the next four years if he were elected? i mean, he's got to come up with that over this weekend because there's only one debate left on monday. >> let's get straight to the cnn contributor, sirius xm radio host pete dominick. he's got a great little panel with him. >> a great big panel. thank you, wolf blitzer for letting us borrow your situation room. >> who are you calling big? >> it's wide this way. i'm already in trouble with the woman. the binder full of women and the benghazi thing, i brought my

binder full of women. and i want to go first to -- this is full of women that i was in relationships with of course. but i want to go to you first on this question of binder full of women. is this a big deal? is this catching on? is this hurting mitt romney? >> you know, when i saw it last night, it really did not have any effect on me. i didn't realize until i started looking at it on twitter that people were really having a reaction to it. it did not phase me or offend me. when he does something i don't like, i call him on it. >> right. >> even if he's on my team. it didn't offend me because i've been on transition teams, there are literally thousands of vacant jobs that need to be filled, board appointments. and i remember, you know, i have had friends to say to me i want hispanics, i want african-americans, i want women, i want diversity that reflects the make up of the state. and it's not easy to find. so that did not phase me. >> that's fine. this is such a classic campaign moment, right? because basically what happened last night was that mitt romney

delivered an extended defense of affirmative action policies in hiring at the state level basically a liberal position. and now liberals are roundly making fun of him. so it's just sort of a classic like, you know, partisan -- >> i'm going to bring benghazi, libya, together with the binder issue. >> this should be good. >> i actually lived and worked in libya. while i was there gadhafi, he surrounded himself with women. in arabic there's a different way of saying it, but basically it's a sixth sense that women are protecters and he trusted them because they would protect him. i do the same thing in the state of montana. my chief of staff, my deputy chief of staff, my chief legal council, all women because they protect me, because they have a sixth sense. not because i want to check boxes. i pick the people that are best. by the way, i pay them more than i pay my men. that's leadership. >> ladies, go apply in montana.

>> van. >> i don't know what to say about the sixth sense. i do say for -- >> very careful what you say. >> gadhafi and women is creepy. >> okay. but what i do think that he hurt himself, romney did. he was bleeding women. women had given him a second chance. and then i just think he came across as somewhat clueless and out of touch. i thought it was especially interesting. they asked a question about equal pay for equal work, which is a legal issue. should america's government be partner to america's women to make sure they aren't discriminated against. and he starts talking about his own personal preferences like he never heard of gender discrimination until he was in his 50s and the story he told apparently isn't even true. then they walk it back. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. it seems he should have a consistent view with regard to women. do you think that a woman who's being discriminated against be able to sue or not? ryan, paul ryan, his running mate, voted against that --

>> the answer was not well phrased. the answer was not tightly worded. actually, the more accurate story is a better story had mitt romney said it accurately. that a bipartisan organization prepared a binder for him full of women that could apply for some of these jobs. >> my binder full of women is empty. >> maybe bill clinton got a hold of your binder before you did. >> let's say romney didn't speak eloquently. >> he didn't. >> obviously we're four men and one woman talking about this issue. >> there's nothing wrong with that. i absolutely enjoy a -- of men. >> your binder's full of them. i thought, romney, you know pivoting smoothly to talking about work life balance and sort of the challenges facing working women. obviously, you know, mitt romney is the whitest of white guys in his 60s, not the first person you'd expect to be able to talk about those issues. but i thought if you watched the cnn dials, take it with a grain of salt. but women responded pretty

favorably to that answer. i think it's not certainly in a debate where romney had a lot of relatively ineffective moments, i think this sort of liberal fixation on the sort of binder moment is a lot like the big bird fixation. >> his most trusted advisor for decades now while he was at bain, governor, his chief of staff when he was governor, the woman who led the search for v.p. is beth myers, who is his right hand person. and his lieutenant governor was also a woman. this is not -- he's not got -- >> women are really important. whoever gets the majority of women is going to win this election. >> false. >> false? >> there's always a gender gap. actually more on economic than on social issues. so you need what the republicans need to do is narrow the gender gap, not win -- >> being very important is very true. >> i always think that way. but i live with three of them and they're all awesome. let me just quickly pivot, very

little time. this whole benghazi thing, let me put it aside, i have an original point to make for once which is when we talk about libya, we have a great argument about presidential leadership. there's a lot of discussion with libertarians and with the left on constitution whether president obama legally had the right to go to libya, how come that question's not being asked in i think because romney and obama are close on that. when we talk about libya, we should be talking about the war that was launched in libya and whether or not this president had congressional authority. that is way more important -- >> actually, i think this is a big missed opportunity for romney. romney has been very determined to sort of out hock the president on almost every front. on a case like libya, there's an argument to be made just as you said that this is sort of the advances of al qaeda in north africa not only in libya but -- >> there was another occasion where his answer was not tightly worded and it should have been. we knew it was going to come up. he had to be prepared. it was obvious president obama was prepared. that was a very prepared answer.

>> the issue on libya i think we should talk about whether or not -- >> we'll talk about the constitutionality of it avenue november 6th. between now and then -- >> right now we have to talk about our unsolicited advice. when we come back here this entire panel is going to pick a target and we are going to give advice. not that you asked. it's always great. stay right here. back from rough economic times. employees are being forced to do more with less. and the need for capable leaders is greater than ever. when you see these problems do you take a step back, or do you want to dive right in? with a degree in business from capella university, you'll have the knowledge to go further in your career than you ever thought possible. let's get started at capella.edu

welcome back to unsolicited advice. i'm pete dominick. our brilliant panel here has hijacked wolf blitzer's situation room to give our unsolicited advice. i'm going to start with the governor. sorry, ross. >> you had me going. >> at great personal risk, my advice is for president barack

obama. the question that was asked last night that was the best question and that barack obama ought to ask every single day from now to election is the question of mitt romney. how are you different than george w. bush? when he was asked that question, he effectively said i'm a little taller, richer. no. he said a different person, a different time. he didn't say i'm not going to send military forces all around the world and put it on the credit card. i'm not going to, for example, have a prescription drug benefit for medicare and put it on the credit card. i'm not going to bankrupt the company by spending more and taxing less. he didn't say any of those things. he said, more or less the same. >> actually, i thought romney made a mistake taking the bait. i thought that was a terrible answer, a terrible question. romney should have talked about himself and not eaten up three minutes differentiating himself from george bush. >> he didn't differentiate himself. >> in all fairness, the only place was criticizing bush on deficit. so all that credit card spending you're talking about he focused

on. i think the place he actually should have focused on and the thing people remember unfondly about the bush era is middle class wages were stagnant then too. and that should have been romney's theme rather than deficits. >> he gave a great opening to president obama and turned it around. >> and obama did an extraordinary job of pointing out the extreme position romney's taking on social policy. he is. he's far to the right of immigration and women and everything else. also on gay marriage. you have somebody running for president of the united states who apparently doesn't support civil unions. >> that's the pot calling the kettle black. he left the largest deficit per capita of anybody and he's proposed to cut taxes and increase spending. >> it was amazing to hear president obama say good things about president bush after he spent four years -- >> well, that was the risk. >> it's that time of year. >> we can talk about this. this is a great one great unsolicited advice, but ana, what do you got? >> my advice is to mitt romney. be the debater, not the moderator. i think he went back to doing

what he did during the republican primary which was try to enforce the rules. it came across awkward then, it came across as awkward last night. the second thing he tried to do was become the questioner. he a lot of times went back and asked president obama the questions directly. i thought that was such a mistake. it gave president obama a chance to answer. it gave him a second shot at the apple on many of the questions. it put the ball back in his court and ate it up some of mitt romney's time. >> good advice. van jones. >> sorry, go for it, van. >> good advice for him on monday. for me, my advice is to president obama which is simply have numbers along with your proposals. just said you have a six-point plan. >> you said it, not me, van. >> just say over and over again, what's amazing is romney has this five-point plan that everybody knocks. everybody look at and say this plan is literally two minus two equals four, it doesn't add up, but everybody knows he has a plan.

obama has a plan that actually works but nobody knows it because he's not disciplined in saying i have a six-point plan or a seven-point plan. just add numbers and then -- >> or it could be that obama's numbers don't quite add up either. i mean, there is that possibility, right? >> but -- fair. but nobody can say when you look at the transcript that he did not put forward a vision and clear plans. >> i can say that. i can say he -- >> hold on. if we don't get to ross's unsolicit the advice, we woebt get to mine. >> here we go. mine is for the commission on presidential debates. i'm all for having town hall debates, undecided voters asking questions, but don't hold it in a state in a part of the country that isn't actually up for grabs in november. look, i'm from connecticut. i love long island. but you could tell from the questioners that these were mostly disaffected democrats. they were often interesting questions but just weren't the kind of questions i think you would have gotten in ohio, wisconsin, so on. >> i have not heard that.

>> a question on gun control, we didn't get much on health care. again, it was interesting in certain ways. if we'd had eight debates, that would have been great. but i think next time go where the action is. i apologize -- >> nothing about the hamp ttonsr the long island expressway. >> if we had 50 debates, we'd all have to be on red bull. >> he did like 27 in the primaries. >> my unsolicited advice is for jeremy epsteen, the young college student who had the first question and for all college student questions out there, government doesn't create jobs. you don't ask the president if i need a job -- he said they both gave him sincere answers and he was happy with them. he said mitt romney looked right through his soul. they gave old far answers to an old far student. i have a two-year associate's degree. i'm on cnn right now. i have a national radio show. i made a great living as a stand-up comedian. it's not about how much college or whether you go, it's about hour charismatic you are or how

hard you work, if you see opportunities, whether or not you know how to take them. nobody's going to hand you anything in life. i got to work with great students last night at hofstra, i got a lot of good friends from high school that got perfect grades on s.a.t. laying tile in vermont, while i'm on cnn. >> i think jeremy got his name in the binder. >> yeah. but they get paid for laying that tile. you're here for free. >> that's untrue sir. i get paid money here. even a per diem. we're out of time. wolf does have to get me that paycheck. let's go back to wolf blitzer who i just found out is in the new james bond film. >> we have details. you'll be hearing about it. that check is in the mail i'm sure. guys, thanks very much. new fallout for lance armstrong right now. you're about to find out which long-time endorsers have now dumped the champion cyclist over the doping controversy that is surrounding him. of our world challenge with the cadillac ats. this is actually starting to feel real now.

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if you can believe it there are additional stunning new developments today in the doping controversy surrounding the cycling champion lance armstrong. niek and anheuser-busch both announcing they're ending their deals with armstrong. and that's not all. cnn's brian todd is working this story for us. fast moving. >> it is. this is a day when all the doping allegations have caught up with lance armstrong in a way that has to be very painful for him. he's not only lost the endorsements wolf just mentioned, but armstrong has pushed himself away from the charity that he'd become synonymous with. this was the pinnacle, seven straight tour de france titles

that transcending cycling and made lance armstrong a global icon. he was unsurpassed as a sports hero, philanthropist, marketing brand. fast forward, off a cliff, armstrong a cancer survivor just resigned as chairman of his own cancer fighting charity live strong saying he wants to spare any negative effects over his controversy in his career. nike dumped him citing seemingly insurmountable evidence that he proceeded in doping and misled nike. anheuser-busch is also severing ties. how precipitous is this as a fall from grace? >> this is like falling into the grand canyon without a net. >> reporter: michael robinson, a specialist in strategic communications and damage control says armstrong's demise has been building for some time. but he says the guillotine on armstrong's career really started to drop last week. that's when the u.s. anti-doping agency said it had uncovered

overwhelming evidence that armstrong was involved in a sophisticated doping program while he was active as a cyclist. the agency report said several teammates of armstrongs testified he used banned steroids and tried to hide it from testing officials. armstrong has consistently denied ever using performance enhancing drugs, but the tide of opinion is undeniable. >> you can push marion jones and barry bonds and ruiz, lance armstrong is the greatest fraud in the history of sports. >> reporter: a spokeswoman for live strong says the charity's had an uptick when armstrong stopped challenging the probe. but the head of the charity watchdog says even though live strong is a well-run organization, it may take a hit from this later. >> having the head of the group and the founder, the founder and the head be somebody not trustworthy makes it very difficult for a charity. >> reporter: robinson says the amount of potential personal

earnings armstrong may lose is inkcalculatabl incalculatable. >> i think until he's able to right the ship and talk to people candidly about what happened in either present evidence that it didn't happen or demonstrate contrition that i did it and i've made a mistake and i'm prepared to move on, he can't move on. >> the people involved in his charity stress that it's important to remember here that whatever's happened with the doping allegations and with cycling, what armstrong has done for cancer patients is still very impressive and that doesn't change. they point out that live strong has raised nearly $500 million for the fight against cancer and helped 2.5 million people. you cannot deny that. that doesn't change. and that can continue. >> he's not completely leaving the charity, right? >> that's right. he's going to stay with it behind the scenes and work to raise money and do other things for the organization. michael robinson, the strategic communications guy we talked to said that was a good idea. also a kbood idea for armstrong

to remove himself from the top position as robinson says he needs to get out of the way so that maybe that charity can move forward and have a chance to survive. >> it's breathtaking what's going on. thanks, brian. brian todd working the story. up next, a pakistani girl shot in the head by the taliban is getting some help now from a huge hollywood name. yeah. one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues with three strains of good bacteria. approved! [ female announcer ] live the regular life. phillips'. [ female announcer ] live the regular life. dad vo: ok, time for bed, kiddo. lights out. ♪ (sirens)

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at meineke i have options... like oil changes starting at $19.95. my money. my choice. my meineke. ncht we now know when the man accused of killing a 17-year-old rksz specifically trayvon martin, will go on trial. lisa sylvester's monitoring that some other top stories in "the situation room" right now. what's it latest? >> wolf, george zimmerman's trial will get underway on june 10th.

zimmerman has pleaded not guilty in the case that sparked protest across the country. he claims martin attacked him and he shot him in self-defense. prosecutors say zimmerman is the one who attacked the teenager. and the largest for profit college in the u.s. is downsizing. the university of phoenix is closing 115 of its locations. fourth quarter profits for the university's parent company, the apollo group, have nose dived 60%. the closings will impact about 13,000 students. but that's just 4% of the university's enrollment since many students actually take courses online. and the wounded pakistani girl who has captivated the world with her courage continues to make progress at a british hospital. doctors say 14-year-old malala yousufzai is responding well to treatment. she was shot in the head by militant taliban gunmen just for going to school. another girl who was shot in the same attack tells cnn "god willing i will continue my

education." >> translator: girls education here is more important than boys because boys can have any job they want. but girls cannot. i want to tell all the girls to continue their mission to get an education. >> wow. these girls are just so brave. what happened to malala and her school friend is touching actress and activist angelina jolie. she's donating $50,000 in malala's honor. you can't say enough about this, wolf, what courage. >> i agree. thanks so much. and you're in "the situation room." a man with alleged al qaeda ties arrested in a bomb plot to blow up the federal reserve bank in new york city. also, the presidential debate looked like a martial arts match. we have a body language expert standing by to tell us what the candidates were up to. and almost everyone's poking fun at mitt romney's so-called binders full of women. we'll take a serious look at his

claim that he boosted hiring of females in massachusetts. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." no mr. mr. nice guy. stung by a flat performance in the first debate, president barack obama came out swinging last night challenging an equally aggressive mitt romney. the result a rough and tumble fight. president obama was widely seen as the winner, but that fight continues today in battleground states which are critical to both candidates' election hopes. our chief national correspondent john king is here in "the situation room." john, what are the campaigns doing on this day after that very important -- >> fascinating calculation wolf.

we want to watch everywhere they go and watch everywhere they spend. you see these nine toss-up states? those are the nine states they're buying into. some thought because the polls are closer in pennsylvania, polls are closer in michigan, would they take the bait, for now the answer is no. the romney campaign making a major investment in the toss-up states we know to be the toss-up states. that's one thing to watch. where does the ad money go? and within the states how do they spend that money? and for now romney deciding keep the map, keep the competition as it is. so as that plays out, then where they go within states, wolf, can be very important. let's start with governor romney. he's in the state of virginia today. obviously president obama carried it four years ago and traditionally a republican state. what is governor romney trying to do? appeal to the people he needs most come election day. he started in chesapeake, virginia. that's pat robertson home base. a lot of evangelicals. among white evangelicals president obama got just 24%,

john mccain 74%, you do the math. that's plus 50%. a republican advantage plus 50% among evangelicals. but if you merge together "the wall street journal" and nbc polling from the month of september, this is coming into the recent period of romney doing better, it was plus 60. so this is an advantage for romney. plus 60 right now, 6-0, among evangelicals. he's doing better than john mccain. he needs to boost that up and get big turnout there. that's where he was in that part of the state. then, wolf, romney came up here to the washington suburbs. he's in leesburg, virginia. let me bring that back up. the wall wants to play with me. in leesburg, virginia, who's he appealing to? suburban moderates. this is where governor romney has work to do. john mccain lost by 21 points to barack obama among moderates. recent nbc/wall street journal polling has governor romney down 21 points among moderates. when you see him in the suburbs in virginia, colorado, ohio and elsewhere, this is still a work in progress for governor romney. he's doing better among

evangelicals. that matters. he's got to work on moderates in the suburbs. >> what about president obama? >> he needs to do the same thing. we're going to watch when they change their ad buys and track governor romney and stay in these states. one of the questions for barack obama is will he give up one of these states and put more money into say ohio. the president was on the trail in iowa and ohio. both stops in iowa and ohio on college campuses, why? the president knows that in a very close election it will matter in the margins. he has to get the african-american turnout, the latino turnout and trying to recreate the magic among young voters. again, this is 2008. do the math. that's 34-point advantage for president obama among voters age 18 to 29 coming into october look at this governor romney was closer, just 25 points. the president's trying to recreate the 2008 numbers. this is still a lopsided advantage for president obama but not as big as 2008. wolf, this election is so close. that's what we're going to watch. in an election on the margins

can governor romney cut into the president's support among those younger voters. can african-american turnout perhaps a little down. so in the final 20 days where they spend and where they go is something to keep a very close eye on. >> the immediate goal for both of these candidates less than three weeks to go is what virginia, ohio, florida, that could be the ball game right there. >> it could be. you're going to see them play in all of these nine states. you're going to see them play in all these states. vice president biden out today for example in the state of colorado. ohio is where paul ryan was today. you're going to see these nine states, but you raise a great point. think of this as a game of chess. sometimes you give up a pawn to save the queen. the question down the road will be if the presidency -- if governor romney keeps this momentum, will the president decide to give up a state to pour more resources into one? governor romney has long tried to expand the map by putting michigan or pennsylvania into play. so far they've decided that doesn't look realistic. as we watch this get closer and closer and one more debate, then they have to make chief resource decisions.

in 2004 john kerry pulled out of ohio. he lived to regret that. we're going to watch closely to see if one of the campaigns decides to give up on these states pour more resources into something else. 20 days to go, a fascinating chess game to watch. >> fascinating indeed. thanks very much. meanwhile, there's no rest for cnn's candy crowley, the moderator of last night's presidential debate appeared on "the view" today. got a compliment from barbara walters who herself moderated two presidential debates in 1986 and 194. watch this. >> you have the toughest job, you had to do the questions from the audience then follow it up and then shut those guys up. i thought you were terrific. welcome, candy crowley. >> thank you guys. >> by the way, aren't you thrilled not to have to do homework anymore? >> yes. yes. i'm going to play games on my ipad on the train home. i'm so excited. >> and our chief political correspondent, the anchor of cnn's "state of the union" the

debate moderator candy crowley. you're getting a lot of praise. you can handle this, right? >> yeah. >> let's talk a little about what george will said. i want to see if you agree with him syndicated conservative columnist. i have seen every presidential debate in american history since the floor of nixon and kennedy in 1960. this was immeasurably the best -- he says this was the best debate he's ever seen. do you think it was? >> you know, i haven't seen the ones he's seen. it's so different on that stage. i have to tell you, i wasn't aware of, you know, the history of it or -- it was just kind of an in the moment thing. if it was good, it's because they both came to play. you know, if you've got one candidate that kind of shows up and doesn't want to engage, that makes for a tough debate. both of these guys with 20 plus days left to go came to play. so they made it a great debate. >> all of us who do these kinds of things and you do it every

sunday, you always second guess yourself. you always say maybe i should have done this. any second guessing this time around? >> i haven't. i understand the criticism. i look at it. but in the end i said going into it that so much of this has to be organic. like what happens in that moment? and, you know, how do you respond to it? it wasn't like there was some game plan, okay, every single time they have to stick to two minutes and every single time they have to do this. for instance, sort of coming out of the box when they just went at each other over gas prices, to me that was a valuable debate and not worth my going, oh, gee, guys this. >> you watched the clock. >> exactly. you have someone in your ear talking to you too. folks presumably don't necessarily appreciate that. >> i do. and they kept track in terms for me okay the president's got four minutes more, let romney talk longer. you know, that kind of thing.

so you kind of balance it as you go. you lose your sense of time to a certain extent. we came out i think three minutes and then they did the thing where mitt romney had more words but talked for less time because he talks faster than the president. >> the president's a slower talker. >> he is. >> so what did you think of the debate? >> i thought it was fine. i just didn't have -- when you're doing that, you kind of don't have a sense. to me it didn't come across as white hot as people viewing it on tv seemed to think. they said, oh, boy, they really hated each other. i thought, i don't know, i didn't get that vibe. i got the vibe to say you're about this and i'm about that. but i didn't get this kind of personal sense. i mean, somebody said, boy, they really came after you and they really challenged you on this. it just didn't feel personal. felt like a debate with very high stakes and a very short time. >> are you the type that goes after something like this? and obviously this is a huge event with enormous ramifications electing the next

president of the united states, you go back to your home or hotel or wherever you were last night and say i have to sit and watch these 90 minutes? >> no. absolutely not. >> you haven't done that? >> no. i have not done that. >> are you going to do that? >> eventually i might. but i'm not going to do it any time soon. we have an election coming up. >> you have other things to do. >> i do have other things to do. i'll save that for another time. >> all right. both the president and the republican challenger, they spoke out about the debate last night. listen to this. >> i love these debates. you know, these things are great. and i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. >> so let's recap what we learned last night. his tax plan doesn't add up. his jobs plan doesn't create jobs. his deficit reduction plan adds to the deficit. >> so they both seemed to have liked the debate last night. one of them probably liked it a

little more than the other one. my own sense is obama clearly won the first one. our poll suggests -- i mean romney won the first one. obama probably won the second one. so it's one to one going into the best of three monday night. what do you expect? >> i expect that they will be equally feisty. it's a different, you know, it's not a town hall again. it's three guys sitting around a table talking. but i must say that i think that what really struck me watching that debate was they're down to playing to their bases. i didn't think this was a debate despite the fact these were questions from undecided voters, i thought they both came out ready to rally their base and that's what caused all the sparks. >> the president did what he didn't do the first debate, he came outd swinging. >> right. >> he needed to do that to reassure his base. he probably succeeded on that front. candy, you made all of us proud. >> thank you. >> rest a bit. you deserve it. >> thanks. one candidate got less time in last night's debate but as

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why americans just can't agree about president obama. what's going on? jack cafferty's following that in the cafferty file. jack. >> president obama did better last night, but he's a long way from sealing the deal for a second term. for example, mr. obama is one of the most polarizing presidents this country has ever seen. according to a gallup poll so far in october a whopping 90% of democrats approve of the job president obama's doing. only 8% of republicans agree. that's an 82-point gap in party approval ratings a month before the election. and figures to be the largest gap for any incumbent president in recent history. george w. bush had an 80-point gap in party approval the october before the election. while bill clinton, george h.w. bush and ronald reagan all had gaps below 70.

the trend is not president obama's friend either. mr. obama's ratings have become more polarized every year that he's been in office. perhaps not surprising when he pushed through things like obama care with no republican support. also controversial are his record government spending and what critics claim is obama's efforts to grow big government. gallup points out that it's not unusual for a president's ratings to be the most polarized their fourth year in office right before the election. for now george w. bush's fourth year still the most polarized of any presidential year since they started keeping records on this back in the '50s. both bush and obama share a near universal approval from their own party and a near universal disapproval from the other side. another explanation is the feelings about obama and bush before him are partly reflection of our hyperpartisan culture where every issue degrades into a battle between the left and right. here's the question, why is the country so sharply divided when it comes to president obama?

go to cnn.com/caffertyfile, post a comment on my blog. or go to my post on "the situation room" facebook page. one of the angry exchanges came when mitt romney questioned the obama administration's handling and labeling of the deadly attack in libya. watch this. >> -- that the president the day after that happened flies to las vegas for political fundraiser. then the next day to colorado for another event. another political event. i think these actions taken by a president and a leader have symbolic significance and perhaps even material significance in that you'd hope during that time we could call in the people who are actually eyewitnesses, we've read their accounts now about what happened it was very clear that this was not a demonstration. this was an attack by terrorists. >> the day after the attack, governor, i stood in the rose

garden and i told the american people and the world that we are going to find out exactly what happened. that this was an act of terror. and the suggestion that anybody on my team whether secretary of state or u.n. ambassador, anybody on my team would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive. that's not what we do. that's not what i do as president. that's not what i do as commander in chief. >> tough words from the president. cnn's intelligence correspondent suzanne kelly is here in "the situation room." you've been digging into this. walk us through what you're seeing. >> well, wolf, the governor was really trying to tie two different things together last night in the benghazi exchange. one, whether the attack in benghazi was launched by terrorists. and, two, whether it was a planned attack. now, does it matter? yes. because those two issues are at the very heart of how the aftermath of the benghazi attack

has undoubtedly become an act of politics. the day after the september 11th attack that killed ambassador stevens and three other americans, the president referred to it as terrorism. >> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation. >> reporter: he did it again that evening. >> no act of terror will dim the light of the values that we proudly shine on the rest of the world. >> reporter: and again the next day at another campaign event. >> no act of terror will go unpunished. >> reporter: as the president said this, the intelligence community was developing an initial working theory. that an anti-muslim film circulating on the internet may have led to a protest in benghazi as it had in cairo. and the attack may have grown out of that protest. but as this was happening, members of congress were being briefed as well. and some republicans had very different ideas about what happened. >> the attack in libya appears to be a very coordinated military style attack.

this was not a demonstration gone bad. this was a clear targeted planned event. >> reporter: so the question then was why ambassador susan rice said on september 16th that the attack came from a protest saying -- >> we did not have information at present that leads us to conclude that this was premeditated or preplanned. >> reporter: administration officials said rice's comments were based on intelligence they had at the time. as we've sinced learn, the intelligence community's assessment was changing. we got the first glimpse of that three days later. national counterterrorism center matt olson became the first administration official since the president to call the attack terrorism. >> they were killed in the course of a terrorist attack on our embassy. what we don't have at this point is specific intelligence that there was a significant advanced planning or coordination for this attack. >> secretary clinton also used the word terror two days later. >> what happened in benghazi was a terrorist attack.

>> but the president hadn't mentioned the word for several days. not even when directly asked on a september 25th appearance on abc's "the view." >> then i heard hillary clinton say it was an act of terrorism. what do you say? >> well, we're still doing an investigation. there's no doubt that the kind of weapons that were used, the ongoing assault that it wasn't just a mob action. >> and it wasn't until september 27th that the first administration official secretary panetta said it had become clear that it was a planned attack. so here's what all this back and forth boils down to. one, whether the president should have said more often in the days after the attack that this was an act of terror. two, just what does the word planned even mean? can something be planned five minutes before it happens? or does it have to be five months? all the heated back and forth exchanges over those two points both of which are very open to individual interpretation, both of which help explain just how

politics has helped shape this benghazi conversation, wolf. >> we're going to be learning a lot more on this. a lot of stuff is about to come out i suspect. suzanne, thanks very, very much. we're standing by for a live news conference on what authorities are calling a thwarted bomb thought associated they say with al qaeda at new york city's federal reserve. we'll have the latest on what's going on. stay with us. you're in "the situation room." ♪ hi dad. many years from now, when the subaru is theirs... hey. you missed a spot. ...i'll look back on this day and laugh. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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new information coming in to "the situation room" on a thwarted terror plot in new york city. lisa sylvester has the latest details. lisa. >> wolf, we are tracking this developing story. and in the next hour we are expecting to hear from new york

city police commissioner gray kelly on what led police to a bangladeshi man who they say planned to blow up the federal reserve building. the justice department says an undercover agent provided the man with 20 bags of purported explosives leading the man to believe he was going to use a 1,000-pound bomb. the material though turned out was inert. of course we'll bring you the news conference as soon as it begins. and data collected by the bureau of labor statistics shows a 22% increase in assaults pushing the overall violent crime rate up for the first time since 1993. up until this point crime rates had been steadily dropping and hit a record low in 2010. the most closely watched annual crime report will be released by the fbi at the end of the month. and a new study suggests taking multivitamins may help prevent cancer in middle-aged men. scientists followed a group of almost 15,000 physicians for more than ten years. half of whom took the multivitamin centrum silver,

they say they are encouraged by the data but more research is needed. wolf. >> every other week there's another study that confuses so many people because there was one that came out a few months ago don't bother with the multivitamin, now it will prevent cancer. i don't know about you. but i'm getting confused. >> between the advice on chocolate, the advice on wine, the advice on coffee, it's constantly changing. but vitamins at least for this week it's in. >> i'm buying some centrum silver i guess. thank you. less time but more words. one candidate came up short on the clock but made up for it by talking more quickly. [ ross ] in the taihang mountains of china,

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last night's presidential debate was certainly chock full of presidential punches, fiery rhetoric. but both candidates sparring not just over the issues but also the amount of time they were or weren't getting to discuss them. so which candidate delivered more verbal content during his

time? our library cross checked the transcripts and found this. they found that while president obama got about 3:14 more in speaking time, mitt romney delivered more words overall. 7,984 words, precisely, compared to the president's 7,506 words. those numbers by the way include everything from a candidate's uhhs and ohhs to the same word getting repeated twice. let's dig a little deeper on this issue. who got more time and more joining us cnn contributors democratic strategist maria cardona and david frum, former bush white house speech director. thanks very much. if you add up, maria, i'll start with you, the amount of time the president got more in speaking. >> uh-huh. >> four minutes in the first debate, three minutes in the second debate. he had a little more than seven minutes in both of these

debates. is that a big deal or little deal? >> i only think it's a big deal if you think you're losing overall. and so it depends on who's complaining about the time on either side. and i think right now, you know, democrats i think feel very good about what the president did last night. i think at the end of the day it doesn't really matter as long as the candidate actually gets their message out. and whether the campaign thinks their candidate got the message out. again, democrats feel very strongly that the president last night was really able to get his message out. and i think that really ruled that stage over mitt romney especially compared to the first debate. >> romney's a faster talker than the president so he got a lot more words everyone though he got less time. >> to borrow an old actor's joke, the words are important but getting them in the right order is every bit as important. so much of political communication is nonverbal. communicating the personality through the movement of a face. so you don't measure how well you're doing by how much air time you get. but the ability to take and hold

air time is an indication of other things that are going on. these contests are in great measure a contest for dominance. we've been civilized creatures for maybe a few thousand years, but our history as social creatures goes back way beyond civilization. when it's time to pick the leader of the pack, we're looking for a lot of things that aren't conveyed with words. >> mitt romney once again was asked to explain how his across the board tax cuts would be paid for so that the national debt, the budget deficit, wouldn't increase. listen to what he said. >> i'm going to bring rates down across the board for everybody. but i'm going to limit deductions and exemptions and credits particularly for people at the high end. because i am not going to have people at the high end pay less than they're paying now. the top 5% of taxpayers will continue to pay 60% of the income tax the nation collects. so that will stay the same. middle income people are going to get a tax break. >> we don't know the details how

he's going to do that. is that realistic? >> no. and even to the extent it's realistic, it's troubling news. i really regret mitt romney's backed in. top 5% in 2009, which i think is the most recent year starts at $154,000 of adjusted gross income. so you have to earn more to get to $154,000 after the basic deductions. if his plan is going to work, which it can't, but if it does, one of the things that happens within the top 5% the burden shifts downward. so you basically move the burden from the poorest customers to the poorish salespeople. that's not a good thing to do. all of this is a function of what this party has done to this candidate. mitt romney released in september of 2011 a very sophisticated and well-looked out economic plan. in february of 2012 on the eve of the michigan primary he was pushed by loud voices in the party to come up with a tax cut. they came up with this 20% proposal. it was never costed.

it was delivered in the speech. there are no briefing papers. now mitt romney is paying the price. that's not romney's fault. maybe it's his fault for yielding to it, but this was demanded of him by the important people in the party. >> maria, it seems to be working to a certain degree he could be pretty effective. in our poll afterwards we had obama winning 46%, 39%, these are individuals that actually watched the debate, debate watchers. but when you ask the question who's better on the economy? romney 58%, obama 40%, who's better on taxes, romney 51%, obama 44%. deficit, romney 59%, obama 36%. those are the top issues, they liked him better even though they thought obama won. >> i think last night's debate put something important on the table for the democrats. i think the clip that you just played was a very important moment for the president because to david's point, i think it is universally now accepted among

voters that this is not a plan that will work. they might like what they're hearing, but i think they like what they're hearing from the president more and more when he talked about wanting for high income earners to pay a little more, that's an incredibly popular notion coming out of president obama. and when he flatly basically said that what mitt romney was talking about was a sketchy deal for the middle class, i think that was one of the most important moments in the campaign. that was important for him. >> romney's was reviewing the president's record and how heartbreaking it, demand on food stamps, unemployment, deep poverty. one of the things -- we opened with a question from a college student in the class of 2012 faces very, very tough times. toughest time for that group since the great depression. it's still true for college graduates unemployment is still under 5%. >> hold your thought. unfortunately we're out of time. we get the point. we'll continue many

opportunities down the road. thanks very much. >> thank you. out of all the facts and figures thrown out at last night's debate, there's one phrase that a lot of people are still talking about. that phrase being "binders full of women." up next, why mitt romney's controversial comments are suddenly going viral. who sent it to cindy, who wondered why her soup wasn't quite the same. the recipe's not the recipe... ohhh. [ female announcer ] ...without swanson. the broth cooks trust most when making soup. mmmm! [ female announcer ] the secret is swanson.

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in all postdebate buzz and political spin, there's one word that seems to be getting a lot of attention. that word being binder. and it's raising some questions about mitt romney's views on women in the workplace. lisa sylvester's here. she's taking a closer look. what are you seeing? >> wolf, the thing that many people will remember about the debate is that phrase "binders full of women." the phrase has become a social

media sensation. and our own cnn focus group counter showed in realtime romney's binder comments were a hit particularly with women. now some are questioning if he could have made his point in a slightly more elegant way. >> we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. i went to a number of womens groups and said can you help us find folks? they brought us binders full of women. >> that binder comment has become one of the most talkable moments within the debate. in minutes a twitter account, pinterest board and a page with already more than 300,000 followers. there actually was a binder, but there are different stories on how it came about. a massachusetts nonpartisan women's coalition put forth those binders. >> in the fall of 2002, did approach governor mitt romney and shan nono'brien to highlight this issue and request that they

express a commitment to working with our group. you know, subsequently after governor romney was elected, we actually worked really hard to vet qualified women candidates. there were hundreds of resumes put together that actually distributed and gave them to the administration. >> romney has consistently been trailing behind president obama in winning the women's vote even as democrats continue working their narrative that there's a gop war on women. >> this is a desperate attempt to keep the war on women narrative alive. >> at last night's debate romney tried to counteract that by relating a story on work balance issues. >> my chief of staff for instance i still had two kids in school, she said i can't be here until 7:00 or 8:00 at night. i need to be able to get home at 5:00 so i can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. we said fine. let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you. >> joanne fanberger is the

author of mothers of intention. she said that statement made him look out of touch. >> that's not his world view. that's not his experience. his experience is that, you know, it's the father of the family, the man of the family who goes out to make the money and the mother who stays at home. >> but despite the optics, history shows us mitt romney has surrounded himself with women. beth myers to lead his search for a vice presidential running mate. she was his chief of staff when he was massachusetts's governor. and his lieutenant governor was also a woman. in his first two years in office, 42% of romney's senior positions went to women. >> he actually took it a step further and said i want my cabinet to be filled with some of the top women in the country. i want to make sure that there's equity there. he mentors women, he promotes their careers. >> now, this is really interesting before romney became massachusetts governor 30% of

senior level positions in the state were held by women. in his first term he did appoint even more women. but it was in the second half of his term, the number of women in state senior positions that actually fell to about 27.5%. this information according to a report by the center for women in politics and public policy and nonpartisan group mass gap. a lot of people are looking at all of this information to say what's the real story. did he hire more women? did he bring on more women or did he not? it's really a snapshot. depends on if you're talking first term or second term or first half of his term or second half of his term, rather, wolf. >> it's amazing how a phrase binders of women takes off and everybody's talking about it. >> it certainly is the buzz word. i think because a lot of people were surprised by the phrasing of it. it's not something you hear every day, binders of women. >> lisa, thanks very much. we'll probably hear more about it. the gloves were clearly off at last night's town hall debate, not only on what the candidates said but the way they said it. why their body language may have dealt more of a blow than the words.

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what a difference one debate makes. last night in round two both of the candidates came out swinging not only with what they said but in the way they said it. joining us now to talk about this is a senior instructor with the body language institute. spends a lot of time helping people prepare for debates. let's talk a little bit, chris, first of all about the hand gestures. i'm doing some of my own right now. >> absolutely. >> the hand gestures these candidates used last night, what did it say to you? >> well, right off the bat we saw both of them, mr. romney and mr. obama come at each other and use this palm down gesture. see it really in each other's face with this. this is kind of pushing you away. i hear what you're saying but,

wait i have the better opinion here. versus an open hand gesture which might be willing to say let's work together on this. >> when you do that pound down gesture, what is that saying to the opponent? >> it's saying i have the right idea. you sit down. you go over there. i have the right way to go here. let's follow what i'm saying. let me speak. i know what i'm talking about. >> how did the body language of both of these candidates -- and you watched all 90 plus minutes evolve in the course of the debate? >> coming out we saw barack obama come out very strong. different than the last debate where he was much more shrunken. >> shrunken you said? >> yeah. he was kind of sad in this down posture. but he was much stronger from the get-go. but when we saw the first interaction of a confrontation where mr. romney is kind of going at him, barack obama kind of turns away and kind of steps back to his chair. and this was a sign in the beginning for barack obama that it was a little too much and that the actions by mr. romney

were very strong. over the rest of the debate he kind of corrects and directly takes on mr. romney especially around the energy issue as well as libya. >> mitt romney, he was also using some of that space that he had for specific purposes. >> absolutely. very effectively. what we saw with mitt romney is especially on the licenses during the energy section of the debate. he steps in, into the personal space of mr. obama. also, kind of throwing mr. obama off for a second. >> and what did that say to you? >> it said to us, a great indication here of here's how to use the aggressive body language to throw your opponent off. we saw it in the past. during an attempt. during the gore debate with bush, gore sitting down, stepped up -- >> it was an awful move. it got him into a lot of trouble. >> in that situation it didn't work, he came from a sitting position to the side. here, romney steps directly into the president and fire as question at him right away. taking the president off his game for just a second. >> it shows self-confidence. >> it shows self-confidence, we

have three power zones, the neck, dimple, the belly button and armpits and when those are locked in a confrontational posture, it can throw another person off. >> next monday, they'll going to be sitting around a table. they're not going to be standing or walking around. what will that give them, advantages or disadvantages to either candidate? >> advantages for romney in the sense that he's now sitting, he's town hall isn't his setting there are times where he was nervous and his body got very active. especially following the libyan question, as well as for equal pay. for him, sitting in the sitting posture helps him. for obama, it also helps him, he's grounded. and i would still imagine just like you and i are, they'll turn to each other and get in each other's face and still be confrontational and aggressive. the face will be a great indicator to focus in. the face is one of the most incredible visual channels. >> they have to realize even

when they're not talking, they're on television, and everybody is watching. it sends a powerful message, the way they're reacting. >> well said, wolf. >> we'll do another look next week. allegations of hooter's and road rage, along with half a dozen cows. the mud is flying in a senate race, we're taking a look. ♪ into a scooter that talks to the cloud? ♪ or turn 30-million artifacts... ♪ into a high-tech masterpiece? ♪ whatever your business challenge, dell has the technology and services to help you solve it.

question this hour, is why is the country so sharply divided when it comes to president obama. eric wrights simply he told everybody he was going to change washington and how they did things. instead he used all his political power to push through not by partisan or even moderate programs, but a liberal dream, obama care.

which is something conservatives heat and many moderates didn't want, either, that made him in the eyes of a great many, unredeemable. c in louisiana writes why do you keep asking this question, jack? fox news and ignorance have painted this man as a noncitizen, noncrit san, big-spending marxist liberal who is also black. you need to get down out of your ivory towers and mix with us and pick up on the racism that is still there. diane writes, because he used his first two years to push health care an historically contentious and ultimately dead issue. ask the clintons. an issue, this is the important part, jack, that if obama and his advisers had had any brains at all. they would have brought up during a second, more secure term. an issue he chose to pursue, all while the economy was tanking. cliff in new york writes, hmm, an african-american president, in a country where legal segregation was officially ended

less than 50 years ago. let us count the ways. bob writes, it's the economy, mr. president. your economy, mr. president. you built that. dave writes, he's the first african-american elected president and a democrat. everything else is commentary. and phil in ohio writes this, the con nunt rum undrum in this is how you go about firing everybody's favorite employee. you know deep inside he has to go. if you want to read more on the subject, go to the blog, cnn.com/calfertyfile. >> if you think this presidential campaign has been nasty. wait until you hear about the u.s. senate battle in florida. it has more mud than the everglades. cnn's john zarella is tracking it for us. >> even for florida, this has been one of the strangest races i think that i have ever seen. senior senator bill nelson, the

incumbent versus republican challenger connie mack iv. this entire battle has been waged primarily with some very negative tv ads. when florida congressman connie mac iv speaks at campaign events, quite often he slides in a reference to baseball. >> i remember as a kid, i had big dreams, i wanted, my dream was to hit the game-winning home run in the world series. >> keeping it in baseball terms, the race mack is now in as much like a bench-clearing brawl. he's running for the senate seat held by democrat bill nelson, a savvy, long-time washington veteran. as a congressman, he once flew on the space shuttle. but this race is down to earth dirty. nelson going after mack's character when mack was younger. >> florida, meet connie mack the iv. a promoter for hooter's with a history of barroom brawling and road rage.

>> it's a matter of constantly reintroducing yourself and introducing who is your opponent as well. all with truthful information, all the fact-checkers have said everything that we've said is true. >> let's say it was all true. who cares? people are losing their jobs, losing their homes, those ads are ridiculous, he knows it. and frankly, it's unbecoming for a senator after two terms, to have to stoop to that kind of campaigning. >> nelson's opponents are playing hardball, too. cows and florida farmland were the focus of the super pac, american crossroads and attacking nelson. >> he leased land he owned for six cows, taking advantage of an agricultural tax loophole to dodge $43,000 in taxes last year. >> the nelson camp says it's false, calling the ad well cow manure. and up until now it's been difficult pinning down how the voters feel. one poll shows the race a toss-up. another gives nelson a wide lead.

but if mack wins, both florida senators would be republican. mack joining marco rubio. >> it would be a huge victory, a huge turn-around. it would mean that there would be no democrat statewide elected official in florida. at this moment, bill nelson is it. >> nelson is counting on independents and some republicans he said vote for him. mack, the experts say, might need romney's coattails to win. this race could very well be decided as they say in baseball, in the bottom of the ninth. now the two of them are going to debate tonight, the latest polls show nelson still ahead, maybe gaining some ground. and you know, connie mack the iv, his references to baseball all the time because his great-grandfather was a hall of famer. happening now, fresh off their heated debate, president obama and mitt romney take their arguments out there to the

campaign trail. we're going to hear the president live this hour. we go inside their tense exchange over libya and terrorism. and an illinois town is about to lose more than 100 jobs, is mitt romney being unfairly blamed? >> i'm wolf blitzer, you're in the situation room. we begin the hour with breaking news, we're learning new details of an alleged terrorist plot to blow up the federal reserve bank in new york city, with 1,000-pound bomb. an undercover fbi operation led to the arrest of this man, a 21-year-old man from bangladesh who may have ties to al qaeda. cnn's national news correspondent susan candiotti is working the latest in new york. >> the latest is that he appears to be a lone wolf at this time. he might have been thinking he was going to be helping al qaeda and/or eventually working with them, he appeared to be working by himself, according to my

federal law enforcement sources. a young man, 21 years old who thought that this very day, that he was about to blow up a 1,000-pound bomb. but it turned out to be a fake bomb and part of an elaborate fbi/nypd sting operation. he came here in january and in july, reached out according to prosecutors to try to recruit some people to help him in his effort to attack america, to target america. preferably, economically. and they said that he, he wrote something down that said that he wanted to destroy america, even going so far as to make a suicide tape just before the attack was carried out this day. according to federal prosecutors, as they reached the federal reserve bank before they got there, they stopped at a hotel where he went inside and made a suicide tape saying

quote, we will not stop until we attain victory of martyrdom. then they drove on to the federal reserve, and that's when they attempted to blow up this bomb. it turns out it was inert. so no one was in any danger whatsoever. but that's when they arrested him. and then, wolf, he made his first appearance in federal court this afternoon. he didn't say much at all. it was just an initial appearance. and he has yet to face a federal indictment. >> how did he get in the united states, susan? >> he came here on a student visa. and at that time, prosecutors say, he tried to recruit other al qaeda people to work with him to try to find him. and he said that he was inspired, instead of meeting with an al qaeda recruit, it turns out this was a source working for the fbi. and in fact, it turns out that he was inspired, he allegedly said, by a well-known magazine that is published in the arabian peninsula, that is published by

al qaeda. an english language magazine. and that's where he said he got the idea to come to the united states and try to wreck our economy. >> what a story. thanks very much for that, susan candiotti. don't go far away, we're standing by for more information from the new york city police commissioner, ray kelly, he's expected to hold a news conference momentarily. we'll monitor it and bring you details as they come in. stand by for that. other news -- the latest face-to-face contest may be over, but the debate between president obama and mitt romney is going full force out there on the campaign trail. kate baldwin is watching what's going on and has some more. kate? >> that's right, wolf. both men are picking up pretty much right where their heated exchange left off last night. we'll go live to an obama rally in ohio in just a few minutes. but first cnn national political correspondent, jim acosta, is with the romney campaign in leesburg, virginia, right back on the campaign trail, jim. what's the latest? >> that's right, kate, mitt romney will be out here in about

an hour from now, he has a country music act warming up the crowd here in leesburg, virginia. not surprisingly, kate, mitt romney is sounding like a candidate who has gone two for two in these presidential debates. it's worth noting what made it and did not make it into his first post-debate speech. >> i love these debates. you know these things are great. in virginia, mitt romney was still in a new york state of mind. still talking about his debate rematch with president obama. >> i think it's interesting that the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term. he can't even explain what he's done in the last four years. >> but at his first event after the debate, romney did not touch on the night's flashpoint that got as fiery as the body language between the candidates. just as his campaign signaled he would do during the debate. romney seized on the u.s. deaths at the consulate of libya. but when romney caught the president, the gop nominee inadvertently gave mr. obama an

opening. >> you saided in rose garden the day after the attack it was an act of terror. it was not a spontaneous demonstration, is that what you're saying? >> please proceed, governor. i want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he attacked the attack in benghazi, an act of terror. >> the obama campaign is not only pointsing to what the president said in the rose garden. >> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter the character or eclipse the light of the values we stand for. >> the president's aides also note his comments the following day. >> no acts of terror will dim the light of the values we proudly shine on the rest of the world. >> no act of terror will go unpunished. >> and the post-debate spin room, top romney surrogates were armed with a different view. >> he used the words "act of terror" in a general sense. but listen, for five days they said just the opposite. >> an argument echoed by paul ryan on the morning shows.

>> it was a passing comment about acts of terror in general, it was not a claim that this was the result of a terrorist attack. >> the romney campaign pointed to what ambassador to the united nations susan rice said five days after the attack. it was a response to an anti-islamic video that was blamed for the siege at the u.s. embassy in egypt. >> it was a spontaneous, not a premeditated response to what had transpired in cairo. >> then there's white house press secretary, jay carney, eight days after benghazi. >> we do not have evidence that it was premeditated. but it was romneys remarks on his efforts to add more women to his gubernatorial staff could that could have a lasting effect on the race. >> i went to a number of women's groups and said can you help us find folks and they brought us whole binders full of women. >> at his event in virginia, romney made a concerted appeal to women. >> this is a presidency that has not helped america's women. >> and he tweeted out this video, featuring his former cabinet members, backing his

commitment to women. >> he totally gets working women. >> in a sign that the romney campaign is eager to get back into debate prep. the campaign has postponed a speech that they had billed as one on fiscal responsibility for friday, no word yet on when that speech will be rescheduled. and between now and the last debate on monday, wolf, we only know of two romney campaign speeches, one tomorrow night in new york at the al smith dinner and a joint event with paul ryan friday evening in florida. kate, back to you. >> we will be watching for that. jim acosta in beautiful leesburg, virginia with a big crowd behind you, thanks so much. >> and also good music going on as well. let's get more on what's going on with libya and that argument that unfolded at the debate. our senior international correspondent, arwa damon is joining us from beirut. unlike all the politicians here in washington, you were actually there, you were in benghazi in the days that followed the horrendous killing of the u.s.

ambassador, three other americans, including two navy s.e.a.l.s. you spoke to eye witnesses. did they appreciate right away or did it take time for them to realize this was a terror plot rather than some spontaneous demonstration resulting from that anti-muslim video? >> well wolf, all of the eye witnesses we spoke to on the scene at the consulate itself, some three days after the attack took place, all said that they heard a crowd whose chant were growing louder and louder. as they approached the compound. and then suddenly, the attack began. from three different directions. most certainly they were all saying that this seemed like it was coordinated because it did come from three different directions. they said that they used both light and heavy weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and other forms of artillery. that's what we know. we do know when it comes to this attack. it was a location, the consulate, in and of itself that

had been targeted in the past. we do know that these extremist elements that do exist in benghazi, elements that the u.s. itself had been monitoring, had the consulate. had u.s. interests and western interests in their sights and had been systematically targeting them over the few months before the attack. on the consulate itself, wolf. >> so it sounds like there was a plot there, they were anxious to go in there and do damage to the united states, kill american diplomats, but maybe they just used the excuse of the video to launch the attack? is that what i'm hearing, arwa? >> that is one theory that is out there, wolf. and we really don't know what the exact motive was for the timing of the particular attack that did take place. was it in fact using the excuse of the video to go ahead and target this location? was it the fact that it was 9/11? greatly symbolic in and of

itself? or was it quite simply that they saw this the perfect window of opportunity to launch this attack. we know that these types of groups are always look for weaknesses, for vulnerabilities and tragically, the u.s. consulate, the way that security was set up there, did provide these extremist groups with something of a vulnerable target. the libyan government very shortly after the attack, again when we spoke to the head of the general national congress, on the scene, at the consulate itself. said that he believed that this was some sort of premeditated assault, that was carried out with the intent of wreaking maximum havoc on u.s. interests for the main intent of damaging relations between the u.s. and the libyans. the libyans themselves, other military officials that we had been talking to also had been saying that they had been warning the americans that quite simply, their position, their stance in benghazi especially was increasingly vulnerable. so it seems as though

unfortunately all of the factors were in place to allow this kind of an attack to take place. >> unfortunately, indeed. all right, arwa, thanks very much. arwa damon, a courageous journalist. as i said, a lot of blatherring going on, she actually went there in the days that followed. risked her own life, spoke to eye witnesses. >> one of the few reporters that has been able to get inside the consulate so shortly after it all happened, she's done some amazing work. we're very lucky to have her. also, president obama is also on the campaign trail today. i think we're taking a look at him live right now. >> speaking in ohio university, he's getting ready to get into the speech. we're going to listen in and see what he's saying, stand by. much more on this coming up, also he's taking direct aim right now at mitt romney. >> let's recap what we learned last night. his tax plan doesn't add up. his jobs plan doesn't create

jobs. his deficit reduction plan adds to the deficit. so iowa, everybody here has heard of the new deal. you've heard of the fair deal. you've heard of the square deal. mitt romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal. the final matchup between the two candidates just days away, be sure to join us monday for the third and final presidential debate. this time in florida. you do not want to miss it, our special coverage starting soon. let's dip back into president obama live in ohio. >> a shout of the mac championship. maybe a bcs bid. i just want to point out that i was pushing for a playoff system, we got a playoff system, one more promise kept for those of you following college football.

but it is outstanding, the bobcats are doing so well, i want to wish you guys luck in the upcoming season. i also came here today, ohio, because i want your vote. i want your vote. i am not too proud to beg. i want you to vote. >> and, and the good news is, you can vote in ohio, right now. find out where at vote.barack obama.com, if you live nearby, you can vote just a few blocks away at 15 south court street. 15 south court street. >> we're listening to hear what the president has to say, he's obviously having a lot of fun with the students there in athens, ohio.

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hurry in, offer ends soon! i'm ryan isabell and i see food differently. ray kelly is speaking to reporters right now. he's saying new york remain as terror target. he says this individual, this alleged terrorist was inspired by "inspire" magazine, al qaeda on the arabian peninsula. the federal reserve bank has become an iconic target. let's listen in to ray kelly. >> i'm sorry? >> it wasn't a real bomb. should we be that concerned? >> clearly, if you read the complaint, what it shows is this individual came here for the purpose of doing a terrorist act. he came here in january of this year. he gets a student visa under the pretext of being a student at a college in missouri. and he comes with the avowed purpose of committing some sort

of jihad here in the united states. he goes to the new york stock exchange, he sees that the significant security there and he shifts his target to the federal reserve bank. >> can you tell us about the jihad chat rooms? >> i'm not going to say anything that's not in the complaint. >> it did say in the complaint that facebook was used here. >> security in new york changing at all as a result of this. >> we always change the game plan a little bit. but as you know, we devoted a lot of resources to the counterterrorism efforts, we have over 1,000 police officers every day devoted to counterterrorism here and we think we're doing the right things. we also believe that we're doing more than any other city in america. >> can you talk about the internet again going back to that, how integral was that in this undercover investigation. >> it was significant. and again facebook was, was used

there was a site. this will all come out in the criminal proceedings, it may in fact come out at the arraignment. >> where -- where is the activity now. what's happening at his home? >> at his home? i mean obviously there will be a search done at his residence. >> the people that he was working with? i'm sorry. >> talk a little about the nypd's role in this investigation? >> we have 120 investigators that have worked with the fbi, the joint terrorism task force, other law enforcement agencies involved as well. but we're certainly working closely with them on this case. >> can you be specific about the role that -- >> no, i can't. >> the role of alwalki was eliminated last year we know that alaki was a motivator for

this piece, in "inspire" magazine, he was the prime mover. it was the magazine or this is the article that he read that justified to him the killing of children, killing of women. >> is it still published today? >> it's available. and if you recall, a case of jose pimental. he used "inspire" magazine used the article "how to build a bomb in the kitchen of your mom" which is named in the complaint in this case, to, in a very methodical manner, build three bombs that he wanted to use here in new york city. >> this is our city again, yet again being attacked. focus of an attack. can you tell us personally when this was unfolding, with this arrest, what it means to you? >> it means that new york continues to be very much in

the, in the mindframe of terrorism. this individual mindframe of terrorists, i should say. this individual came with the express purpose of committing a terrorist act, he is motivated by al qaeda. so we see this threat as you know, being with us for a long time to come. >> this is just a 21-year-old, do you think he's going to inspire other 21-year-olds? he wasn't very sophisticated in how he went about everything. >> we always see that it's always somebody who was not sophisticated. unfortunately if something does happen, then why weren't you on top of this case. >> i don't know how you characterize unsophisticated. he was arrested, but he clearly had the intent of creating mayhem here. >> the u.s. official on his target list, do you know who that is? >> yes. >> is it president obama? >> i'm not going to discuss

that. >> in terms of how, would you say this guy was more aspirational? how would you describe him? >> i wouldn't call it aspirational when you go and pick up 50, 20-pound bags of ammonium nitrate and you obtain a truck and bring it to the site of a major federal facility and you troo i to detonate it that goes way past aspirational to me. >> how much of catching him is based on hard work of law enforcement and how much is actually by chance that he approached -- >> i think the fbi deserve as lot of credit in this case. this was the result of investigative efforts. they have the right people in the right places to pick up this sort of information, this sort of aspiration, if you will. >> ray kely, the police commissioner in new york, making it clear this was a real threat.

fortunately it has been thwarted, a 21-year-old man from bangladesh, came to the united states, ostensibly to study. but commissioner kelly says his real purpose was to commit an act of terror inspired by al qaeda and kate, i know you've done some work on this magazine, "inspire" magazine. we'll have more details on what was going on. stay with us. in that time there've been some good days. >> and some difficult ones. but, through it all, we've persevered, supporting some of the biggest ideas in modern history. so why should our anniversary matter to you? because for 200 years, we've been helping ideas move from ambition to achievement. and the next great idea could be yours. ♪

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. we're going to get back to what's going on in new york city right now. a terror plot thwarted according to the new york city police commissioner. new information coming in. a picture of the 21-year-old ostensible student from bangladesh supposedly wanting to study in the united states. supposedly wanting to study in

the united states at a college in missouri. but actually planning an al qaeda-related terror plot on the federal reserve bank in new york. with a 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. the damage that could have been done to that, amazing when you think about it. fortunately it was thwarted. the president of the united states we're told has now been briefed on what's going on. much more on the breaking news coming up. but there's other important news we're following right now. including political news. women in the workplace for example, a major focus of last night's presidential debate. >> that's right. from the number of jobs they've lost to the recession, to the flexible hours for working moms. >> let's talk about all of this with our chief political analyst, gloria borjer an our chief white house correspondent, jessica yellin. you're reporting on campaign strategies, so what message will each candidate use to target these critically important voters out there? >> the candidates will build on their own campaign playbook to

sharpen their appeal to undecided women voters. so president obama is going to highlight social issues and his record in office. governor romney attacking the economy under president obama. it's clear who these men are trying to court. >> this president has failed america's women. they've suffered in terms of getting jobs, they've terms of falling into poverty. >> we don't have to collect a bunch ever binders to find qualified talented women. >> the president was referring to governor romney's off-note attempt to show a softer side. when only men applied to join his cabinet in massachusetts, the governor said -- >> i want to a numb of women's groups and said can you help us find folks and they brought us whole binders full of women. >> ouch. working women are among the voters these men are vying to court. how will they do it? first, contraception. >> i don't believe that bureaucrats in washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not.

and i don't believe employers can tell someone whether they can have contraceptive care or not. >> the obama campaign plans to dispute that aggressively. >> he supported legislation, that would have allowed employers to make those decisions for women and we're going to make sure that every woman voter knows that over the next 21 days. >> part of the argument, governor romney supported a bill allowing employers to offer insurance without contraception. he said it was about limiting government regulation. contraception would still be legal and available. a second appeal to women? the economy. >> i mentioned three and a half million women, more now in poverty. than four years ago. what we can do to help young women? and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers are looking to find good employees. >> on the numbers, he's right. when the president took office, 22 million women lived in poverty, now it's more than 25.5 million women. neither candidate talks about

solutions for poverty. finally, equal pay. >> the first bill i signed was something called lily ledbetter bill. >> the bill helps women sue if they're paid less for the same work. the romney campaign first wouldn't take a position on the measure, which some consider an undue burden on business. but the governor has since said, he would not work to overturn the law. >> now wolf, governor romney's former lieutenant governor, carrie healey, rushed to his defense after the binder story line caught fire today. she said that the governor treated all employees quote fairly and impartially. but that did not stop vice president biden from escalating the attacks, he accused governor romney of living in a 1950s time warp. when it comes to women. meow. >> the rhetoric is going to head up i think it's fair to say. thanks very much for that, jessica yellin. >> she's right. >> and last night when asked about pay equity, pay equality,

mitt romney spoke about his career as governor of massachusetts. saying this -- >> now one of the reasons i was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. but number two, because i recognized if you're going to have women in the workforce, that sometimes they need to be more flexible. my chief of staff for instance, had two kids that were still in school. she said, i can't be here until 7:00, 8:00 p.m. i need to be able to get home at 5:00 so i can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. we said fine, let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you. >> let's bring in gloria borjer to discuss what's going on. gloria, when the governor was asked about all of this last night, i want to play this little clip. >> i think that's a clip maybe that we played? >> we have that -- you know what, play the clip of what you were told by beth myers.

>> i spoke with beth myers over the summer when i was doing my romney documentary, she's the woman that mitt romney was talking about in the clip that we showed. she was his chief of staff when he was governor. she also ran his 2008 campaign. she's the person who vetted the vice presidential candidates for him. she's a senior adviser right now doing debate prep for him. you see her in that little clip in her office. so when he approached her in 2002 about becoming his chief of staff, she said you know what, it's a problem for me because i have children who are 10 and 12, i can't work those late hours. here's what she told me this summer. >> that was a real conflict for me, because they were in school during the day. but my husband and i had decided that i would stay home and take care of the kids. my husband travels during the week. and so that that time between 5:00 and 8:00, which is the witching hour, was troublesome to me. and mitt thought about it and he said look, i've got an idea.

if i, if i, if we had an arrangement where you left every day at 5:00, got home, got your kids dinner, started them with their homework, got them settled for the night and that was part, that was the understanding, would that work for you? i was always very cognizant that it would not have worked, if, if he had ever, if someone had ever said to him at 5:30, where's beth and he had rolled his eyes and said, i don't know, i guess she left. he never, ever did that. and that was key, he always had my back on this. and he was always a partner in making this work. and that was, that was why it did work. >> the problem for mitt romney of course, last night was that the question was about pay equity. and the president obama, would go write to the lily ledbetter act. and say republicans voted against that. so her explanation is very compelling, but that wasn't the question that he was asked. >> mitt romney could have almost really used that soundbite you just played to help his argument

last night. isn't part of mitt romney's problem in trying to win more female supporters, a larger republican problem? >> don't forget, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. we went through all of the republican primaries. rick santorum had his 15 minutes of fame, and contraception became a major issue, of whether insurance companies should pay for contraception. and abortion became a major issue. you had the republican platform, which has no exceptions for rape and incest. you have republicans in congress voting against pay equity. you have the defupding of planned parenthood which mittmy has spoken about. the repeal of obama care, which women are worried about. on this particular question, the president, that's why he's been in the lead with women in the double digits. the one, the argument that mitt romney is pursuing, which has resonance with women, is the argument about the economy. and how many women are in poverty. but if you look at the

battleground states, women in those battleground states, according to gallup, care an awful lot about the social issues. >> glor yarks great work, thanks so much. >> we're going to have more on the al qaeda magazine that inspired this latest terror plot in new york that we've been telling you about. that's coming up next. yummy, scrumptious bars. hmm? i just wanted you to eat more fiber. chewy, oatie, gooeyness... and fraudulence. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. [ male announcer ] fiber one. i'm in deep, babe. you certainly are. ♪ ♪ we're lucky, it's not every day you find a companion as loyal as a subaru. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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terror plot thwarted in new york city, the new york city police commissioner says this man, a 21-year-old man from bangladesh who came to the united states supposedly the study at a college in missouri really came to the united states. kelly says to try to exert al qaeda influence and blow up an economic target in new york city. peter bergen, our national security contributor is joining us right now. peter, he says, ray kelly, the commissioner, that this individual was inspired, if you will by "inspire" magazine, a glossy, online publication that promotes al qaeda. tell us a little bit about it.

>> "inspire" magazine was edited by an american citizen who was killed in a c.i.a. drone strike last year. it's written to appeal to the english-speaking audience. the magazine came out fairly regularly before samir khan was killed. it's designed to appeal to ordinary folks in the west and in south asia it's not written, you know, it's not written in a lot of arcane, religious langua language. it was written to appeal to ordinary folks. and clearly it's been seen as an inspiration in this case. one thing that's interesting to me is this guy, the bangladeshi, it's quite unusual as far as i can recall for a bangladeshi to be involved in this kind of

thing in the united states. bangladesh is a very large country. one of the largest muslim countries in the world. we haven't seen, be in everyone galis coming to the united states to get involved in alleged acts of terrorism. we've seen pakistanis, but not bengalis, wolf. >> and an war al awlaki, supposedly involved with the magazine as well? >> very much so. i mean anwar al awlaki initially people thought of him as really sort of a religious figure, kind of inspiration. over time the view was, that he was becoming more operational. that he was kind of involved in a plot, the christmas day 2009 plot in terms of what more of an operational role. and that's why president obama authorized for the first time in american history, the assassination of an american citizen. because awlaki was regarded as being a threat. >> peter bergen, as usual, we'll stay in close touch.

this is a breaking news story, kate that we're going to be automobiall over. because if it had worked it would have been a disaster. >> we'll continue to follow the breaking news of the foiled terror plot in new york. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america and supporting wind and solar. though all energy development comes with some risk, we're committed to safely and responsibly producing natural gas. it's not a dream. america's natural gas... putting us in control of our energy future, now.

and the candidate's speech is in pieces all over the district. the writer's desktop and the coordinator's phone are working on a joke with local color. the secure cloud just received a revised intro from the strategist's tablet. and while i make my way into the venue, the candidate will be rehearsing off of his phone. [ candidate ] and thanks to every young face i see out there. [ woman ] his phone is one of his biggest supporters. [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center... working together has never worked so well. silverado! the most dependable, longest lasting, full-size pickups on the road. so, what do you think? [ engine revs ] i'll take it. [ male announcer ] it's chevy truck month. now during chevy truck month, get 0% apr financing for 60 months or trade up to get the 2012 chevy silverado all-star edition with a total value of $8,000. hurry in before they're all gone!

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an illinois town is about to lose nearly 200 jobs to china. democrats are trying to place the blame on mitt romney, even though he left bain capital a

decade-plus ago. cnn's ted rowlands explains the uproar. >> i have an air mattress, i have three sleeping bags. >> for more than a month, tom gallrap has been living across the street from this auto parts plant in freeport, illinois. he and a handful of other employees are living in tents, eating donated food and taking cold showers. >> it can be a little bit nasty. >> all of this because the plant is shutting down and their jobs, a total of 170, are moving to china. even though the company reported record profits last quarter. >> november 579, scheduled to be my last day after 33 years. >> the plant is owned by bain capital, a company started by mitt romney. although romney left bain seven years before they even bought the freeport plant, most of the anger in this tent city, they're calling bainport is directed towards governor romney. >> make no mistake about it,

sinsada, agreeport, illinois is ground zero on the american fight to keep jobs in the united states. >> democratic illinois senator, dick bushen was here. and says because romney holds a stake in bain, he holds some responsibility to the loss of jobs. >> is that fair? >> it represents a corporate philosophy, a bain capital philosop philosophy. that you can ship jobs overseas, make money and ignore the consequences. >> he's no longer associated with bain in terms of decision-making. >> he may not be involved in the major decision-making, he's a major shareholder. he made his fortune at bain. that's a fact. >> handful of people were in the main tent to watch the presidential debate. reacting to any mention about jobs going to china. >> yeah. >> several workers have had to train their chinese replacements. mark shrek went to china to do that in 2010.

mark says he blames not only corporate greed, but politicians from both political parties. >> this needs to be addressed. this isn't the democrats versus the republicans. this is an american issue, americans, democrats and republicans are getting laid off over there. in the next few months. >> there are democrats that also profit off bain. john than levine is a bundler for president obama. and steve pagliuca, a managing partner of bain and the co-owner of the boston celtics ran as a democrat for massachusetts senator scott brown's seat, he lost in the primary. and the romney campaign did issue a statement to us, wolf. it said in part, bain invested in sensata in 2006, seven years after governor romney left the firm. only the president can level the playing field with china and president obama has failed to stand up to china's unfair competition. six arrests today at the factory

behind me, wolf. organizers say they plan more civil disobedience between now and when the plant closes at the end of the year. >> ted, thanks very much, ted rowlands reporting. still ahead, two service members arrested and accused of rape in japan, that story, next. ♪... ♪... choose the perfect hotel

. outrage today from japanese officials after two u.s. sailors were arrested and accused of raping a woman on the island of okinawa. >> the suspects were identified as christopher daniel browning and skier walker. both are 23 years old. the woman reportedly has an

injured neck. the u.s. military presence in okinawa, which was captured during world war ii, has generated long simmering resentment among the japanese. also, this video we're showing you was posted to youtube. syrian rebels saying it shows them shooti ining down a regime helicopter. losing control after being hit once, then a few seconds later, it's hit again and exploded. cnn cannot verify the authenticity of the video. meanwhile, syrian opposition groups reporting 155 people killed today. back here in the u.s., new home construction hit a four-year high last month. up 15% from august and filings more than 11%. both numbers are the strongest since the summer of 2008 before the financial meltdown caused

home lending and building to freeze up. fresh off the political headlines, jeanne moos is ready to hand out some awards that are debatable. hmm, it says here that cheerios helps lower cholesterol as part of a heart healthy diet. that's true. ...but you still have to go to the gym. ♪ the one and only, cheerios anne's tablet called my phone.

anne's tablet was chatting with a tablet in sydney... a desktop in zurich... and a telepresence room in brazil. the secure cloud helped us get some numbers from my assistant's pc in new york. and before i reached the top, the board meeting became a congrats we sold the company party. wait til my wife's phone hears about this. [ cellphone vibrating ] [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center, working together has never worked so well. [ female announcer ] with cisco at the center, if we want to improve our schools... ... what should we invest in? maybe new buildings? what about updated equipment? they can help, but recent research shows... ... nothing transforms schools like investing in advanced teacher education.

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couraged jeanne moos to hand out some post debate awards. >> this didn't raise eyebrows, our award for the most excited viewer goes to the guy who tweeted out a naked photo of himself.

handed it like gunslingers. the speak to the president like you're his daddy award goes to -- >> you'll get your chance in a moment. >> candy, hold on a second. >> mr. president, i'm still speaking i g speaking. >> i'm sorry. >> if the words won't come out, resort to true tor false. >> not true. it's just not true. >> it's absolutely true. >> as one put it, am not, are, too. award for flagrant rule breaker goes to michelle obama. not because she hugged her husband because during the debate, she defied the rules and clapped after a testy -- >> this was a reaction. >> tail end was caught on camera, blink and you'll miss it.

fresh from the surprise celebrity endorsement, honey boo boo. >> barack obama. >> barack obama got kudos for his debate performance, calling the most anatomical tweet, geraldo praised the -- when it comes to -- finger pointing. >> governor romney, here's what we did. >> you said your first year -- >> you said me, too. >> you have investments in a cayman's trust. >> even pointed at the moderator. >> i got to move -- >> actually got the question. >> and of course, the candidate's pointer fingers on each other. >> to get comprehensive immigration reform done. >> the debate reached a climax with a point a thon. record, three-pointers. jeanne moos, cnn. >> thank you.